


A Big Game of Bluff

by SingingInTheRaiin



Series: Worth the Wait [6]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Idiots in Love, Rose and Rory are BFFs, Time Travel, also the horrors of the Doctor's fashion choices, but oh well, marriage bond, of course I'll be screwed when a 14th Doctor is actually cast, sorry if you enjoy the 13th Doctor but we've moved past that, space travel, the Doctor always has been and always will be emotionally constipated, the Doctor and Rose are so in love that it's gross lol, the horrors of catching up with people you haven't seen in a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 07:17:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21231911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingingInTheRaiin/pseuds/SingingInTheRaiin
Summary: Rose sends the Doctor on a 'scavenger hunt' to see many of his old friends and companions. But why has she sent him on a goose hunt, and what is the prize waiting for him at the end of it?





	A Big Game of Bluff

The Doctor opened the door to find her standing there, crying. He immediately shifted on his feet, feeling unbearably awkward. He had never been particularly good at dealing with crying people, and he seemed to be especially bad at it when they were someone he already knew and cared about.

The Doctor cleared his throat when it became apparent that his companion was unaware of his presence. “Uh, Ar’eiel? Is everything… okay?” Rassilon, but he never seemed to get any less awkward in any of his bodies. 

Ar’eiel dropped her hands from where they’d been pressed up against her eyes, revealing how purple they were (which was a normal color for an Austeranian who had been crying, since they had blue blood and pink skin, so anything that made them flush made them appear somewhat purple). “Doctor! Is Rose with you?”

If the Doctor didn’t understand how much better Rose was with people than he was, he might get offended. As it was, he knew exactly how little he would be able to help when it came to any emotional matters. “Well, it is our ship. It’s sort of where we live. Together. Like we have for… uh, a very long time.” Was it bad that he couldn’t remember how long he’d been with Rose? He knew that in those trashy Earth shows that Rose always made him watch (that he would deny upon threat of torture and death that he did NOT enjoy), husbands got in trouble for not remembering things like how many years they’d been together. But that was besides the point at the moment! “Yes, Rose is here.”

Ar’eiel gave him a sad little smile. “Thanks. She always seems to show up right when I’m going to need her most.”

The Doctor nodded. “That’s Rose for ya.” He turned around to poke his head back inside the TARDIS. “Rose! Darling! Love of my life! Light of my soul! You’re needed out here!” 

He knew that even if Rose wasn’t close enough to hear him, the TARDIS would pass the message along. Not to mention that he was sure Rose already knew what was going on, since she was the one who had insisted that they visit their latest part-time traveler. 

Then he turned around to look at Ar’eiel again. “So… how have you been?” She gave him a disbelieving look, and okay, that was deserved. He’d just watched her sobbing harder than her species was ever meant to, and then he’d asked her how she’s been. Maybe the Doctor should start only communicating via his bond to Rose, so that she could act as a filter before he said anything stupid out loud. “Uh, I haven’t seen any reports of clouds, so that’s good, right?” 

The Doctor and Rose had first met Ar’eiel when her entire planet, which was supposed to be all desert terrain, had been flooding because of a never ending storm, and she’d jumped right in to save the day with them. She was still the equivalent of a teenager by Austeranian standards, though, which is why she couldn’t travel with them full time yet.

Ar’eiel shrugged one of her many shoulders in response to the Doctor’s question. “My mother still insists that they’ll be back, but she’s just paranoid.”

With the extent of the Doctor’s small talk run dry, they both just stood there in a bit of an awkward silence for a minute until Rose finally emerged from the TARDIS like the beautiful, wonderful, amazing savior that she was. She shot him a grin at his thoughts, and then took on a more somber expression as she walked over to Ar’eiel. “Hey,” she started softly.

The alien girl immediately threw two arms around Rose to pull her in for a hug, and even though Rose’s form was immediately engulfed, it was obvious that she was the adult providing comfort in this situation. “I really thought that he loved me,” she sobbed. 

The Doctor blinked a couple of times in surprise. “Is that what this is about? We diverted from seeing the Cincadi’es star fall, which only happens once every thousand years, because of a high school romance?”

Rose glanced over her shoulder to give the Doctor a scolding look. “We have a time machine, dear. We can go see the star fall at a million different times. But right now, Ar’eiel is more important.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath, but he knew that Rose was right. Not that that automatically qualified the Doctor to be any kind of help in this situation. “Well, we can use the TARDIS to fetch some chips and ice-cream, since those are pretty good comfort foods, and-”

“Austeranians can’t have dairy,” Rose reminded him in that patient tone of hers that meant she’d already told him something a hundred times. “You found out that they have no cows or anything even close, so you brought those giant tubs of Rocky Road to the victory celebration and all of them got insanely sick because their bodies were never designed to process milk.” That did sound vaguely familiar, though in the Doctor’s defense, that had been ages ago. What else could be expected from time travelers? “It was two years ago in our timeline,” Rose said with a smothered laugh.

Okay, so maybe the Doctor just didn’t have the time to store that kind of information when there was always so much else to see and explore. He crossed his arms over his chest and gave Rose his grumpiest look. “Alright, well, since you’ve clearly got this situation handled all on your own, how about I just hope on the TARDIS and go for a spin and then pick you two up once all of… this has been resolved?” He gestured to the entire room, as if that could sum up Ar’eiel’s relationship problems.

Rose pulled away from the hug so that she could go over to the Doctor and stand on her tiptoes to give him a brief kiss. “That actually sounds like a good idea. Clearly you’ve got a lot of energy to work off, and we both know you’d be no good here. What was it you told Martha? You’re garbage at weddings, even your own?”

Hm, that did sound like something the Doctor would say, though at least this time he knew for sure that it had to have been a very long time ago. He hadn’t caught a single glimpse of Martha Jones in about four or five faces, depending on how one counted them. “Alright, I get it, you were just trying to get rid of me from the start. That’s fine. Just let me know when you need a lift. That’s all I’m good for, isn’t it? Intergalactic taxi service?”

“Well, I don’t just keep you around for your pretty face.” Oh, but the grin on Rose’s face made the Doctor want to ditch Ar’eiel and drag his wife back onto the TARDIS and straight to their bedroom. Of course he enjoyed being with Rose no matter what he looked like, but he had noticed that this latest body seemed to be particularly randy. 

But that would be ‘irresponsible’ and ‘impolite’ and probably a lot of other words that started with ‘i’. From the amusement and other feelings in the bond, the Doctor knew that Rose could tell exactly where his thoughts had gone, and he also knew that she wouldn’t abandon a friend in a time of need, even if teenage relationships did seem like a rather petty thing to be worried about. “I’d better go before I have to tear myself away.”

Rose nodded, and reached up to grab at the tie that he always wore over his t-shirts, and gave it a small tug to tighten it, even though the Doctor preferred to have it hang very loosely from his neck. “You think that teenage relationships are petty?” she asked him in a breathy whisper. “Are you forgetting that I was only nineteen when we met?”

With Rose’s face so close to his, the Doctor found it difficult to think of any witty rebuttal, so he just accepted defeat, and stepped away from his wife. “Call me,” he shot over his shoulder as he stepped back onto the TARDIS. Someday, Rose was surely going to be the death of him. But what a way to go.

,,,

As soon as the TARDIS dematerialized, Rose turned back to Ar’eiel, and immediately gave the girl a big grin. “That was brilliant acting. I wasn’t sure you’d have it in you.”

Ar’eiel grinned back, and then reached up to wipe away the pale blue tear marks from her face. “Considering how inept that man is when it comes to feelings, I’m pretty sure I could have said or done just about anything and he’d have believed that he needed to scoot.” Then she tilted her head to look at Rose curiously. “But considering you can go from place to place without the TARDIS anyways, why did you need to trick him into leaving you here?”

The look on Rose’s face most certainly meant trouble, but Rose and the Doctor’s trouble was always the absolute best kind to get into.

,,,

The Doctor thought about just skipping ahead to whenever Rose was going to call for him, but since he wasn’t actually sure when that would be, he decided that it would be best to find something else to do instead of just hanging around in the vortex.

Thinking of Martha brought up other memories of that era in his life, and even though the Doctor had once made it his policy to never revisit his personal past, life with Rose had changed that. Even without Rose physically next to him, he had her support and love, and he could always feel the thrumming of their bond, even if it did get a bit weaker when he went too far away.

The Doctor danced around the console, always feeling quite strange when he needed to drive the ship all on his own, and set the coordinates. There could be something quite fun in seeing an old friend, especially since she couldn’t possibly have seen his current face yet. (Once Rose had stopped needing a constant connection to Earth, they’d stopped visiting it quite so much, and instead branched out to the rest of the universe. He’d regenerated somewhere far away from Earth, and hadn’t been back there with this face yet). 

Once the TARDIS had landed down, the Doctor gave a grateful little pat to the console, and then stepped outside of the ship. There was always going to be something special about 21st century London. Not only was it where he’d met Rose for the first time, and experienced Rose’s complete and utter trust in him for the first time, and made an exception to his rules by getting involved with the domestics of Rose’s life, and- well, lots of other grand adventures had happened in London, too. He’d certainly wound up in London often enough right after his regenerations. 

The Doctor jammed his hands down into the pockets of his jeans, and then strolled down the street. It should be the street that Martha and Mickey lived on. As he headed to the house that looked most familiar (though even that one was only familiar in a vague sort of way), he suddenly felt a hand wrapped around his elbow that jerked him to a halt. He turned to see who had grabbed him, and furrowed his eyebrows. “River? What are you doing here?” She hadn’t seen his new face yet, at least not that he knew of, but she wouldn’t have grabbed him if she didn’t recognize him. It was very inconvenient for the Doctor that River refused to live in the proper order. 

River glanced up and down the street, and seemed satisfied that no one was watching them, because she started dragging him back the way he’d just come from. “Don’t make a scene,” she hissed under her breath.

The Doctor glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Even after so long, it still felt strange to see her with the face she had now, rather than the one she’d worn while haunting his eleventh self. He kept his mouth as still as possible when he spoke. “Is there any particular reason that you don’t want me to visit some old friends? I thought that you and Rose wanted to encourage me to not constantly run from my past.” River didn’t respond, which was an annoyance, but the Doctor just let himself be led away. “So I’m assuming that you’ve seen this face of mine before, then?”

He could practically feel the way that River rolled her eyes at him. “Either that, or it occurred to me that I don’t know any other grown men who would walk around looking like such a punk. An out of style punk.”

The Doctor glanced down at his current outfit. Dark jeans, a t-shirt he found funny because it said ‘Are you an alien? Because I think you’re out of this world’ that Rose had gotten him for a Christmas present at one point, a checkered tie, and a scuffed up pair of tennis shoes. “What’s wrong with my outfit?”

River snorted. “I’m pretty sure that you ask that question every time around, and every time, the answer is the same: you have no good fashion sense.”

The Doctor brushed a hand over his t-shirt as if to brush off some invisible specks of dirt. “I think I look good,” he said with a sniff. “And Rose likes my outfits,” he had to add.

There was a short pause, and then River let out a small burst of laughter. “Oh, well if Rose likes your outfit, then it must be good. It’s not as though she’d like you in a paper bag because she’s in love with you. Not to mention that I have seen photos of the things she wore back in the day. Pink is a nice color and all, but she wore it into the ground.”

Well. It was one thing to insult the Doctor’s wardrobe choices, since he was entirely used to that by now. But it was a whole other problem to make fun of Rose. Sure she’d worn a lot of pink, but she’d looked so cute in it. His pink and yellow girl. And River being Rose’s… whatever they classified their relationship as didn’t give her the right to make fun of Rose. (Or maybe it did? The Doctor would certainly have never insulted his parents, and his children had never insulted him in any fun way, but even after all this time he found human culture to be a strange thing).

They finally got back to the TARDIS, and the Doctor got ready to snap his fingers to open the doors, but River took him by surprise by just tugging him straight past the ship. He gave her a slightly confused look. “So where are we actually going?”

River pressed her lips together into a flat line and didn’t say anything. The Doctor could have easily pulled himself free, but decided to go along with this because he couldn’t deny that he was intrigued. The two of them walked for another few minutes, before stopping in front of an ordinary looking house. He glanced at River, and she just pulled him in through the unlocked front door. Once they were inside, she slammed the door shut and locked it behind them, then motioned for the Doctor to follow her to the sitting room. “Tea?”

“That would be nice, thanks,” the Doctor answered on reflex. Then he remembered the biggest peculiarity about his current body. “Er, actually I don’t drink tea. Can’t stand the stuff. No matter how much sugar and milk I put in, it still just tastes like bleh.”

River laughed. “So what do you drink?”

“Coffee, if you can believe it.”

That only made River laugh more. “Coffee’s even more bitter than tea! And it rots your teeth and throat. How can you stand that stuff? Eugh. I don’t have any coffee here, sorry.”

The Doctor sighed. “I also have a bit of a fondness for hot chocolate, as long as there’s marshmallows in it.”

River shook her head. “Sorry, don’t have marshmallows. Or cocoa, for that matter.”

The Doctor frowned. “Well I guess I’ll just take a glass of water, then.”

River shook her head head again. “The tap water in this area’s no good, so unless you like boiled water, I can’t help you there.”

“Well what do you have?” the Doctor asked in exasperation. 

River tilted her head to the side for a moment like she had to think about it, then answered, “Tea.” 

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, and then they both burst into loud laughter that lasted for a bit longer than usual. What could the Doctor say? This face really liked to laugh. 

Once they’d both calmed down, and they’d both settled down on the sofa- which was the only piece of furniture in the house as far as the Doctor could tell- the Doctor gave River a serious look. “So what’s actually going on here? Why can’t I visit Mickey and Martha? And why didn’t you just bring me back to my TARDIS?”

River gave him a long look, and then leaned back in her seat, facing the wall in front of them instead of facing the Doctor. “It’s kinda complicated, but I promised that I wouldn’t tell you about it, so it doesn’t matter anyways.”

The Doctor could only think of one person that could make strange things happen without even being around, and who could get River to agree to make promises. He probed along their bond, but didn’t feel much. “What is she up to now?”

River grinned for just a second before schooling her expression, and she gave a casual shrug. “We may never understand the inner workings of that mad woman’s mind. Just stay here for a little while longer?” She glanced down at her watch. “Let’s say oh… forty-seven minutes and twenty-eight seconds, just as a random number to throw out there.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes, but then agreed. Lucky for River that he wasn’t his eleventh self, because then he definitely wouldn’t be able to sit still for longer than a few seconds. But in this body, he found it easier to just sit back and relax. Not easy, but easier than many of his former regenerations. 

With no other furniture that the Doctor could see, there wasn’t much to do in the way of entertainment, so the Doctor decided that they’d just have to settle for catching up with each other, as horrifying as that sounded. River was always up to something interesting, and she had a way of telling stories that always made them sound even better. He suspected that she got that from Jack. He’d always been a natural liar- sorry, storyteller.

When the Doctor’s time sense told him that it had been forty-seven minutes and twenty-eight seconds, he hopped up to his feet, interrupting his own story that he’d been in the middle of telling. “So, what now?”

River slowly looked down at her watch, and then up at the Doctor. “Guess you should probably go visit with your friends. It’s what you came here for, isn’t it? They don’t know me, so it wouldn’t make much sense for me to stick around.” She gave a lazy salute that definitely wasn’t meant to be a sign of respect, and then fidgeted with the dials on her vortex manipulator until she disappeared.

The Doctor still had no idea what was going on, but he figured that whatever it was must be safe enough if Rose was involved, so he left the empty house, and headed back down the street to his original destination. He knocked politely on the front door, and waited patiently for it to be answered by a familiar face. 

He was somewhat surprised that he didn’t at all recognize the boy who opened the door. “Who’re you?”

“Ah, I’m looking for Martha and Mickey Smith. Do they still live here?”

The boy gave him a long look, and then glanced over his shoulder and shouted loudly enough to make the Doctor startle. “Mum! Dad! There’s a weird looking guy here to see you!”

The Doctor bristled at the implication that he was weird-looking, and resolved to ask Rose about it later. She’d have mentioned it if she thought he looked weird, right? Also, curse Rose for making him even care about something as silly as looks. One only has to peruse photos of some of his past selves to know that he hadn’t always been so vain. 

There was a moment of silence, and then a familiar face did walk up to the door, prompting a big grin on the Doctor’s face even as Martha looked at her son scoldingly. “What have I told you about answering the door when you’re not expecting anyone?”

The boy just rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I got it.” He gave the Doctor another assessing look, and then walked away. 

Once he was out of sight, Martha turned to face the doorway, and gave the Doctor a quick up and down, which was followed by an entirely unimpressed look. “And who are you supposed to be?” 

The Doctor hated that he suddenly felt nervous. He wished that Rose was with him, because she would recognize Martha, and Martha would recognize her, and surely the two of them would immediately launch into some kind of wonderful catching up type of conversation. 

He cleared his throat. “It’s good to see you, Martha Jones- or Smith now, I suppose. I’m the Doctor.” 

She narrowed her eyes, but then her face softened, and she gave him a smile. “I knew you were coming, but I didn’t know you’d look like you’re pretending to be a teenager from the year 2000. Come on, Doctor.”

He followed her into the house, which was a nice looking place. “So you were expecting me, huh?”

“We’ll get to that soon enough. Come on.” They went into a kitchen, where an older looking Mickey Smith stood in front of a marble island, mixing something in a big bowl with a look of intense concentration on his face. “He’s here.”

Mickey paused in his mixing, and looked up. He gave the Doctor a suspicious look. “That’s the Doctor? He looks-”

“Wonderful,” Martha interrupted, a teasing smile on her face. “He looks absolutely wonderful, dear.” Then she turned to look at the Doctor again. “Hope you like pasta and chocolate cake, because that’s what’s for dinner tonight.”

The Doctor looked back and forth between his two previous companions. “Oh, uh, I wasn’t intending to-”

Martha reached out to grab the Doctor’s arm. “Oh, please say you’ll have dinner with us, Doctor.”

He sighed, but how could he say no to that face? Well, it would probably be pretty easy, actually, but after everything he’d put Martha through back when she’d traveled with him, the least she deserved was for him to have a meal with her family. And he had technically stolen Mickey’s girlfriend, so he owed the other man too. “Well, I do like cake.”

The Doctor wondered if he should be afraid of the mischievous look on Mickey’s face as they all sat down at the table, including their son, CJ. What the heck was Rose up to?

,,,

Rose rolled her eyes. “-and then he went to that little cafe on the moon that we both like, without me! Can you believe the nerve of that man?”

Rory laughed. “Yes,” he answered immediately. “I absolutely can.” 

Rose laughed as well, and then paused to take a sip of her tea. “Anyways, how have you been? You probably wouldn’t even believe me if I told you how long it’s been since I last saw you.”

There was a proud grin on Rory’s face as he fumbled to pull his wallet out of his pocket, and opened it to show Rose the photo that was in there. It was in black and white, but was still clearly a new picture. It showed Amy and Rory standing with each of them holding one shoulder of the little blonde boy that stood in front of him. “His name’s Anthony.”

Rose had to smile as she looked at how happy the little family looked in that picture. She looked back at her best friend, and then leaned forward to give him a quick hug. “Oh, I’m so proud of you! ‘S kinda funny, though, don’t you think? I raised your first child, who’s biologically yours, and now you’re raising your second child, who’s biologically someone else’s.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you know that. And you know what they say about paying it forward, right?” Though there was a tinge of sadness in his voice. Even now, after many years in both directions, River was a bit of a sore point. Of course Rory was glad to know that if someone other than he and Amy had to raise his daughter, that it could be his best friend. But that didn’t change the fact that he would always blame himself for not being able to protect and hold onto his family better. He cleared his throat, and shoved the wallet back into his pocket. “So, uh, how are you? And I’m not asking for more funny stories, not that I don’t enjoy those. But I also remember a time when you showed up to take your TARDIS and you said that you couldn’t just come back and hang out whenever you wanted to, so it must be about something important.”

Rory was probably the only person in the universe who knew her as well as the Doctor did- though if she did out the math, she was pretty sure that by now, she’d finally spent more time with the Doctor than with Rory. But that didn’t change the fact that they had spent a very long time with no one but each other for company. It would be stranger if they didn’t know each other so well.

Rose shifted in her seat, and then glanced away from Rory. It was going to be hard enough just getting the words out, and she wasn’t sure she could do it if she had to actually look at the person she was talking to. It just all felt so unbelievable still. If Rose wasn’t so certain, and hadn’t had the TARDIS double check about a thousand times, she probably wouldn’t want to say anything at all. “I’ve uh, sent the Doctor on something of a scavenger hunt. All over the place, to a bunch of his old friends. I didn’t tell any of them why, though. I’m about to tell you something, and you’re going to be the only person in the universe who knows. I’m telling you now because I know the Doctor can’t come here in the TARDIS for us to tell you together later, and he does hate time traveling without a container.”

Rory reached out to take one of Rose’s hands, though he didn’t force her to look at him. “What is it? You know that you can tell me anything.”

Rose took a deep breath in, then slowly let it out. “Rory, I’m-”

,,,

The Doctor wasn’t sure why Rose had decided to send him on an old history tour (and he wasn’t even going to ask how she knew that he’d start with the Smith family. Well, the Mickey and Martha Smith family. He had to clarify because he’d also been sent to the Sarah Jane and son Smith family). None of them seemed to know why Rose had put together such an extravagant adventure, but all of them had been pleased to see him (even a few that he thought might hate him). 

As much as the Doctor had enjoyed visiting everyone, he was also glad that the hunt was over. He’d just left River, where he’d visited her in her own time for once, and she promised that she’d been the last stop on the hunt. Instead of telling him the next location like all the others had, she told him to just get on the TARDIS and figure things out from there.

So the Doctor snapped his fingers and then boarded his beloved ship. As soon as the doors closed behind him, he could feel the strength of his bond with Rose, and knew that she’d just hopped back. “Everything okay with Ar’eiel?”

Rose slowly walked towards him with an unreadable look on her face. The Doctor searched the bond, but Rose had always been good at hiding her thoughts when she felt she needed to, and the Doctor wondered what surprise the hunt had been leading to that she didn’t want to let him in on the secret even now. 

“Rose?”

She took a deep breath in, then slowly let it out. “Doctor…” she trailed off, and then reached out to grab both of his hands. She tilted her head back to look him in the eyes, and there was a lot of emotion to be seen in her gaze, but the Doctor didn’t have time to analyze any of it before Rose spoke again. “Doctor, I’m pregnant.”


End file.
